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Today was the first time i'd visited the park in years and honestly I was optimistic and had a few pleasant experiences but ultimately the bad outweighed the good and there's a long road ahead.

By all accounts BGH were essentially hands off for the first few years; their role was to support the existing team in exchange for a reasonable return on their investment. What little insight we get into their financials now suggests that return has failed to materialise. There hasn't been a noticeable lack of investment like say we saw with Dreamworld for many years, it's just been that so much of what Village have done has fallen flat. I'd say the recent management upheaval is the first clear indication that BGH aren't happy with how the company has been operated and are looking for change. And if these embezzlement allegations means greater scrutiny is given to all supplier relations then that can surely only be a good thing given how much Village outsources these days. The long-term squandering of the post-TRR advantage is classic Village. See their film production business, stance on streaming and countless other businesses and opportunities that fizzled or simply never happened.

Indeed, it was scheduled to reopen on Friday. Still says it'll be open by then, I assume they'll try to winch it up to the mid course, but not sure how long that would take. They'd have some experience with this as I think it vallied in the same spot last september closure. Today was the first time I'd visited the park in months and honestly I was pleasantly surprised. Seems like they're slowly starting to turn things around. Hope I haven't spoken too preemptively.

No arguments there. But how do you bring about mindset changes? For the first time in the company's history, a Kirby (or Burke) family member isn't in the executive chairman position. And this same person is overseeing day-to-day operations of the theme parks, with a presumed mandate to clean things up. If that's not an opportunity for sweeping changes then I don't know what is. I'd always advocate for industry veteran appointments to positions like these, but at best Village have been treading water since covid (or since Rivals?), and any competent fresh blood at the top is welcome.

Obviously we have no insight into the specifics of these embezzlement/kickback allegations, but there's definitely been big bucks spent on sub-par execution in recent years so it's hard not to make the connection even if it's completely baseless.

I've never seen bad work by Sanderson. Hopefully they're given the creative licence to realise the vision. Nothing worse as a creative than working for a company that scales back the budget and compromises the final product.

It’s like they’re renovating a house with everyone still living inside it, and the builders only showing up when they feel like it. So what’s the point of letting guests into a space that’s mid chaos and nowhere near finished?